Just wow. We just got finished a "gimmick" game 69-19. They rushed with all wards on mid tower, and proceeded to get slaughtered. they continued this for most the game. They all had teleport (thankfully, so did I as Veigar, and stunned them at the tower every time). After the first two minutes, I had full boots and another couple items.

I don't think I'll ever have a game that good or rather, against that bad a team.

Played a couple of games with the new champion last night. Not entirely sure what I think of him so far. I've heard some people calling him brokenly OP while others are less enthused about his strengths. The complete lack of escapes or movement abilities is not something I'm really a fan of, especially since his best damage late game revolves around landing a few auto attacks and then an ability. It doesn't help that in both games I played as him, I had to share a lane with another champion who was fighting for CS against an opposing Varus that had a support, leaving me behind the opposition even when I outplayed them.

His laning phase is pretty strong though. He's easy to gank because he doesn't even have Ashe's ability to kite and the movement speed advantage he has over other ranged ADs is only 5-10 MS. His ultimate is pretty cool, but I found that unless I knew where everyone was on the map, I had to save it for defensive use at almost all times.

He has a lower base AD rating than any other ranged AD that I play except for Kog'Maw, though the magic damage on his passive W makes up for it for the most part. He doesn't have any traditional steroids though and as a late game carry, he seems to fall behind the top tier in that category. His Q can actually be rather challenging to use but using it successfully to snipe someone who might otherwise get away is supremely satisfying. I'm not sure at this point how much of his late game strength revolves around successful use of his ultimate, but it can be really strong in the right circumstances, and almost completely useless in others.

Despite having abilities that seem like a mix of many other champions, he doesn't play like any of them at all - he feels very unique to play despite the easy to draw parallels. The easiest comp is Ashe, with more damage but less utility and range. He can have a ton of burst in the right circumstances but pulling off a perfect ability rotation takes effort and skill unless the enemy plays into your hands. He might be the easiest to kill carry in the game for a bruiser with a gap closer but he does provide a nice mix of damage and utility and I could see him working with a number of team comps.

I ended up going against a Varus mid-lane as Cass last night. I showed up to lane thinking I was going to be laning against a Vlad, and thus had no armor to speak of.

During those early levels, I was impressed by how much a fully charged up Q did. He pushed hard and hit level 3 before me...went in and dropped me to probably 30% using flash and ignite. I felt safe, but he dropped me with a single charged Q (I was still level 2) from beyond tower range.

I was stunned...had enough money for a cloth armor and pots...went back to lane and proceeded to crush him because he wasn't very good (anytime you can build zerker greaves, vamp scepter, PDancer, you have to do it right?).

I loved it at 6, he would engage on me, only to get ulted and die without a fight. (2 DRings into Glacial Shroud into Giants belt Cass too strong!)

His skill shot and his AOE slow are both AD scaling, with only his passive and his ultimate scaling on any AP at all. You'd need 100 AP just to add 3% to full stack (1% per stack) detonation damage, and you'd be gaining only 25 damage on auto attacks with it. Hybrid items just don't add significant amounts of AP outside of Hextech Gunblade, which gives 70. Even if you combined that with Guinsoo's Rageblade for the AD, AP and stacking attack speed, you're looking at 115 AP total.

The real problem with building AP on Varus comes down to the cooldowns on his abilities. He'll never make sufficient use of his abilities (especially with one of them being a passive) to justify an item like Trinity Force or Lich Bane and the only AP scaling he has past his ultimate is resultant on landing abilities that scale with AD. Two active abilities on long cooldowns and a passive modifier to his auto attack just don't seem to make for a productive AP build under any circumstances.

As for the on-hit builds, his lack of escapes and his inability to extend his range like Kog'Maw just leaves me questioning how it could work better than a traditional AD build which would add movement speed with a Phantom Dancer, stronger auto attacks for poke and kite (instead of sustained, stationary attack speed) that actually crit, and the AD ratios he has on his two active abilities that aren't his ultimate. His Q scales from 1.0 to 1.6 AD (not bonus AD) and his AOE scales at .6 bonus AD. The way Varus' kit is designed, it seems that a traditional ranged AD build is simply stronger throughout the game, with no disadvantages when compared with other builds.

On-hit Kog'Maw works because the attack speed synergizes so incredibly well with his kit. He has a stronger slow, greater range, and % based magic damage. He can simply melt opposing champions faster than anyone in the game. On-hit Teemo works because he has more AP ratios to work with and his blind to shut down opposing auto attackers after they've used their gap closer. I'm not sure where Varus fits into an AP or on-hit build without seriously compromsing his damage potential.

With Varus, it increases your autoattack damage by up to 35(physical)+23.25(magic), along with letting you pop your stacks for a 2.79% extra HP% damage. In addition, at full stack, your SNAKEULT will do +93 more damage. Seems like a good deal for $!

It's also in the first paragraph of my post. I forgot that the AP stacks with the attack speed though.

I love the idea of the synergy Rageblade in particular can offer. I'm also scared of auto attacking consecutively enough to keep the stacks up and make it useful with a champion with no movement abilities and minimal kiting. Still, I like the idea itself enough that I'm dfinitely going to try it out. But even if it does work out, I still don't like the overall idea of AP and on-hit builds on him.

I could certainly see a build that consisted of:Berzerker GreavesInfinity EdgePhantom DancerGuinsoo's RagebladeHextech Gunblade

...and a sixth situational item. It'd certainly be different than the standard ranged AD build, but it'd be a variation and not a full departure.

I love the idea of the synergy Rageblade in particular can offer. I'm also scared of auto attacking consecutively enough to keep the stacks up and make it useful with a champion with no movement abilities and minimal kiting.

The point is, you don't have to! The Rageblade procs everytime you use an ability, so firing off Q will proc it twice and keep it at whatever stacks. The Bilgewater Cutlass is also a great mid game item, giving you sustain (15%) and +35 AD, and a targeted slow.

I can imagine going boots+pots, then getting a vamp sceptre for (10%) sustain and a pickaxe for damage. You can then rush either the Bilgewater or the Rageblade. Build the other item, then build him like any other AD carry. (Phantom Dancer --> IE/BT/BC --> Gunblade --> Whatever)

Another reason why I'm aiming for an early Bilgewater is because his crowd control is kinda weak, and the 3 second slow can help you seal a kill or run away. (His ult is better kept for team fights and his E has travel time and isn't *that* strong)

I've played maybe 10 games with him so far, but I think Varus is the best-balanced and most enjoyable to play champ that they've released in recent memory.

His gimmick, of course, is his Q. Once you learn it (and it's not terribly hard to learn, IMO because of the very fast missile speed) you are a monster. The movespeed reduction they gave him while charging it is critical because the skill itself is (IMO) the best skillshot in the game. The fact that they gave his E -movespeed AND heal reduction seems just a little excessive, since none of the other AD I can think of gets two debuffs with their aoe skill. His W is what Vayne's W should have been, IMO. And his ult is very dota-esque in the sense that it's either complete ownage or complete failure, and the difference between the two is 100% on you. Overall though I think he's extremely well balanced.

It's not a traditional AD build, but his skillset, while scaling off AD, isn't most effectively played as a traditional AD. I play him as a poke/kite/chase type champion, which I think his skillset meshes with very well. My overall strategy is to use Q to poke until the fight kicks off, then ult and back out to keep dropping E and Q when possible while damaging targets of opportunity. The pd/mallet combo works on him because of w- it's easy to chase or kite as needed, and you can do significant damage to anyone trying to chase you down by using Ashe-type kiting tactics to keep your pursuer slowed while insta-casting Q to consume W stacks. It's usually enough damage to dissuade people from coming after you, and at that point if you choose you can become the aggressor.

I'm also interested in trying triforce instead of mallet, but I'm not sure that the damage proc is worth losing out on the guaranteed slow from mallet, and I don't think that his cooldowns are low enough to really take advantage of the damage proc either.

I really like the concept of an AS/AP build on him, akin to hybrid Kog or Teemo, especially because of the synergy off popping Blight stacks. Rageblade is a core item simply because his spike is backloaded - you won't pop it until you've built rageblade stacks and then pop it. You can also throw a Malady on for MR shred since by definition you have to shred the MR first with autos before you pop the stack.

Then you can easily spread from there - continue strong hybrid with Gunblade, go Nashor's Tooth for AS/AP, Wit's End for more on-hit damage, or build into standard AD or AP. I really really like the build potential with him. Riot will no doubt dissuade us from being creative at some point so I'll enjoy it while I can.

What you're doing isn't much different from my bog standard ranged AD build actually. The only real difference is how early you build the Frozen Mallet. I always rush Phantom Dancer after Infinity Edge before I think about the Mallet, and even then, I usually pick it up after a Bloodthirster. I love the survivability and the slow that Frozen Mallet gives but I can't justify abandoning the attack speed and the movement speed that Phantom Dancer offers (not to mention the crit chance) to pick it up first. I place a rather significant premium on the movement speed that Zeal -> Phantom Dancer offers though, so my opinion is certainly skewed because of that.

Personally, I'd stick with Frozen Mallet over Trinity Force. You can't use your abilities often enough to make the Sheen proc worthwhile.

If you can proc the explosion every 3 hits (unlikely, but hey, let's go with best-case scenario here), Varus has a 0.25 + (enemy health / 10000) AP ratio on his autoattack. Against a 2k health opponent, it's an effective 0.45 ratio, with 3k health it goes up to 0.55.

However, that's a long way from saying it's good. The usual tradeoff of AP / AS is sacrificing crit-scaling for stronger abilities. Varus' Q and E are both AD scaling, so there goes that idea. An AP / AS build on Varus trades crit-scaling and *weaker* abilities in return for shifting your damage from physical to magical (plus you need to be able to land a skillshot at least every 3 hits). There's only going to be fringe cases where that's worth it.

That's not to say never build AP; super cost-effective items like Rageblade would be fantastic on him. I just wouldn't go full on AP / AS, it doesn't make sense.

Nah, but getting just enough AP to hit a breakpoint on the W percentage scaling would be a very good idea. Going Rageblade into Malady gives him pretty strong early-midgame on the cheap, letting him go into the Zeal-IE-PD train afterwards while staying effective. It transitions him from magic spike into a traditional sustained damage role without actually significantly hurting his ability to produce sustained damage.

Was lanning against a Twisted Fate. If it weren't for my retarded running towards his three card attack, I would have completely dominated him. As it was, I usually killed him, and got the jungling Nocturne down low before we both retreated. This was before 6, and I almost never take ignite. I usually go for teleport and flash.

One thing I love, is a mid that lets me get my Q fed. It's just great, nothing like a well placed dark matter late game that takes 1/3rd the health of 3 champions (usually finished off by a Q, and the DFG + ult on Sona to kill her quick).

I absolutely hate teams that pick up banshee's veil when I'm Veigar (and all bot fights, since all bots pick them up, too).

The game after that was of little note, their Ryze (mid) connected 4 minutes in, and their Kayle never connected. I was completely missing with my stupid circle, or I would have zoned Ryze out (from death) from even getting more than a few levels. Obviously, the game just wasn't fair and they surrendered at 20 because we were killing the crap out of them. Their Ryze, however, was pretty good.

In other news, I haven't played Hecarim much in real games. I just don't know a good spot for him if I can't jungle. He doesn't have much in the way of support or CC to help bottom or top (where our team usually has a Caitlyn/Miss Fortune bot, and Tryndamere top). The only time I usually had a tanky/dps was if I went top as Nassus and we had a jungler.

Event Horizon is such a powerful zoning and CC tool that Viegar is both very safe from ganks and very effective at initiating ganks when his jungler is around. I always enjoy jungling for a skilled Veigar, as the jungle ganks are often free kills.

That said, Veigar is one of the easiest AP champions to shut down early game, and he's one of the AP champions that a non-caster can lane against with relative ease. Gangplank in particular just laughs at Veigar in lane and ranged AD champions can usually lane against him with ease... though if they're trying to prevent him from free farming Q, they're putting themselves at serious risk of getting ganked by the jungler.

incognito wrote:

In other news, I haven't played Hecarim much in real games. I just don't know a good spot for him if I can't jungle. He doesn't have much in the way of support or CC to help bottom or top (where our team usually has a Caitlyn/Miss Fortune bot, and Tryndamere top). The only time I usually had a tanky/dps was if I went top as Nassus and we had a jungler.

If you're going by the meta, the only spots for him at all are solo top and jungle. He can certainly become an absolute beast as a tanky DPS but some of the popular top laners right now can just dominate him up there in the early goings.

I think Hecarim's best spot right now is as a farm jungler, when your team has enough CC in their lanes that they won't need instant gap closers for successful ganks and can even manage on their own if you're too busy farming. Once you get a few items though, you can really start to make your presence known.

Was lanning against a Twisted Fate. If it weren't for my retarded running towards his three card attack, I would have completely dominated him. As it was, I usually killed him, and got the jungling Nocturne down low before we both retreated. This was before 6, and I almost never take ignite. I usually go for teleport and flash.

One thing I love, is a mid that lets me get my Q fed. It's just great, nothing like a well placed dark matter late game that takes 1/3rd the health of 3 champions (usually finished off by a Q, and the DFG + ult on Sona to kill her quick).

This bothers me, especially since I see mid TF do this almost every time. I understand why, in an intellectual sense (caster TF won't autoattack much, so E has almost no priority and Q obviously has max priority). But focusing Q early as TF is practically giving up your lane against anyone with half a brain; this can obviously backfire tremendously, especially against a champ like Veigar.

The minor range buff on TF's autoattacks a few patches ago even strengthens my pet solo TF strat (which needs MS quints but the rest of the runes are your choice): Start with boots and E (Stacked Deck), use my superior MS to constantly smack the opposing champ with Stacked Deck. Second point in W (Pick a Card), then alternate Gold Cards and Stacked Deck to harrass and/or zone out the opposing champ. R>E>W>Q or R>E>Q>W. More than half the time, the opposing champ gets low enough that I can finish them with Gold Card + Stacked Deck, move in close and Exhaust, Flash with them and smack them with another Gold Card + Stacked Deck after some autoattacking. Against Veigar, that's just devastating because he needs to spend his mana on lasthitting minions with Q. Anytime he cages me, he's burning a lot of mana for very little benefit, while the occasional Blue Card lets TF zone with impunity. In the worst case scenario, the jungler has to spend almost all of his time babysitting mid, which can result in a huge advantage for my team.

This doesn't work against several mids (Malzahar likes starting Boots, Cass will just burst the crap out of TF, Galio's gonna have a full MR runeset, etc.), but those mids are nearly impossible to dislodge no matter what champ you're playing. I can always just default to the "traditional" Q-focused laning TF build against those champs.

If you're going by the meta, the only spots for him at all are solo top and jungle. He can certainly become an absolute beast as a tanky DPS but some of the popular top laners right now can just dominate him up there in the early goings.

That's similar reasons as to why I stopped playing Nassus. I'd do alright solo top, but had no escape, no CC, and barely any way to kill (esp. if I was 1v2 top) early game. I'd have to let them push to tower, and even then depending on who I was laning against, could get tower dove.

Currently, I usually play either Alistar (as pure tank, and almost no damage) or Sivir. I like Veigar, but have had a few games where I got absolutely shutdown and murdered mid, so it kind of turned me off of him for a while.

My Alistar build probably needs work. I start Regrowth + pot. Push for Philosopher's Stone, lvl 1 boots, Heart of Gold. Then I'll either build a Sheen, or start on my Frozen Heart. (Lately, I've been trying to get Sheen for a little damage before dumping all the cash on a FH). About mid game, I'll finish boots and a Shryela's (for the team movement chasing or fleeing). Then I finish my FH, pick up a Negatron, and work on Force of Nature and Warmog's. sometimes I pick up Omen to stack with the FH debuff if they're a auto-attack heavy team.

Since I'm only level 22, I have 21 points in the Defense mastery, magic pen glyphs, armor and magic resist for the others, and health Quints.

I get my pop up, my heal, and my bull rush, then I level my Q and E (pop up and heal) evenly to help with lane pushing and team fights. (naturally, I take the ult every time)

It just seems like I do literally no damage. I remember defending a tower from a Malphite, he just kept hitting the tower, even though I was hitting him, and it did almost no damage (mid game, maybe level 10-12)

It just seems like I do literally no damage. I remember defending a tower from a Malphite, he just kept hitting the tower, even though I was hitting him, and it did almost no damage (mid game, maybe level 10-12)

You're never going to do significant damage without some kind of complete troll build. The point is that you have a reasonably strong AOE spammable heal and your combo of Pulverize then Headbutt. Being able to Q someone up in the air then run around behind them before they recover and punt them toward your team is basically backbreaking if you can land it.

In my opinion Sheen is a waste on Alistar. I focus entirely on his Q->W combo so I start with boots and potions along with the move speed masteries in both the utility and defense tree on top of move speed quints. If I remember correctly I'm pretty close to 400 MS at level one. That's usually enough that it becomes very difficult for people to avoid me if I can get any kind of positioning on them. From there I actually tend to immediately try to get to 650 gold so I can immediately jump up to the Boots of Mobility. At level three or so when I get them most people don't even have basic boots yet unless they started with them while I'm now EXTREMELY fast. That's usually when I start roaming and trying to set up ganks. Even if you don't secure a kill it's often enough to either burn a summoner or cause enough damage to drastically swing the lane matchup.

Then again when I play as 'support' I tend to be on the very aggressive side of things. I just don't enjoy passive laning (and I consider randomly poking with Soraka and Sona to still be passive). So I guess take what I say with a grain of salt.

My Alistar build probably needs work. I start Regrowth + pot. Push for Philosopher's Stone, lvl 1 boots, Heart of Gold. Then I'll either build a Sheen, or start on my Frozen Heart. (Lately, I've been trying to get Sheen for a little damage before dumping all the cash on a FH). About mid game, I'll finish boots and a Shryela's (for the team movement chasing or fleeing). Then I finish my FH, pick up a Negatron, and work on Force of Nature and Warmog's. sometimes I pick up Omen to stack with the FH debuff if they're a auto-attack heavy team.

Since I'm only level 22, I have 21 points in the Defense mastery, magic pen glyphs, armor and magic resist for the others, and health Quints.

I get my pop up, my heal, and my bull rush, then I level my Q and E (pop up and heal) evenly to help with lane pushing and team fights. (naturally, I take the ult every time)

It just seems like I do literally no damage. I remember defending a tower from a Malphite, he just kept hitting the tower, even though I was hitting him, and it did almost no damage (mid game, maybe level 10-12)

If you are supporting bot you dont really need any defensive items for a while. I start with the mana regen item from philo stone (cant remember name) 3 wards, two health pots, and one mana pot (I have the gold masteries; 0/9/21). I go Philo Stone, lvl 1 boots, heart of gold, boots of mobility, glacial shroud, spirit visage, finish Frozen Heart, with masteries that gets me to 40% CDR. After that you can build more MR, plus the aura and some AP, with abyssal specter or build the HoG into that "newish" locket item. You dont need to build terribly tanky early on, his ult takes care of that need.

For runes, I use standard support runes; Armor yellows, MR/level blues, Mag. Pen reds, movement speed or AP quints. I start with Q (pulverize) and then get headbutt (W); after that you should prioritize your ult(R) and heal(E). It is one of the best heals in the game and is still the cheapest way to proc your passive (not that it does much damage) even at level 5. Q and W are use for the CC, not for the damage.

The best way to play in lane is to stay in the lower bushes and headbutt champs into the far wall and then pulverize so your lane partner has time to get attacks in. This works amazingly well with vayne, it gives her time to then condemn into the wall as well. Anytime you hit someone into the wall it will stun them for a short duration so dont just pulverize right away. The other method is to pulverize, walk behind them and then headbutt back out into your lane partner or group. Your job in lane as support is to heal, keep your partner alive, to set up kills, and take tower hits when necessary. He is one of the most disruptive champs around right now and has one of the best tank ults in the game.

I've also started jungling alistar but that is a different build. I agree that sheen on a support/tank alistar is a waste; the only good you can get out of it is with the speed increase from trinity force which is far to expensive for you. The added attack damage is negligible with a tank/support alistar.

Then again when I play as 'support' I tend to be on the very aggressive side of things. I just don't enjoy passive laning (and I consider randomly poking with Soraka and Sona to still be passive). So I guess take what I say with a grain of salt.

It'd be stupid to pick Sona and not poke. Soraka is a lot more debatable, especially since she lost the ability to restore her own mana and conservation actually matters now, but sometimes you're facing some stupid melee-melee or melee-support lane composition that lets you poke with her basic attack.

I'm in love with my "rush Philo, then HoG, then Kage's Pick, and THEN get Boots" Soraka build if I can reasonably pull it off, so you'll never see me poking. In fact, you'll rarely see me much closer than max range to still get experience unless my teammate's in trouble, because I'm going to be at a huge MS deficit for almost the entire laning phase.

But my God, that passive gold income really starts to make a difference when I'm playing a 0-10 CS support champ.

Buying new champions is so much fun. Every time I get up to 7k IP or so I think to myself, "Okay, I really should buy some rune pages and more specialised runes... or I could buy Irelia. Irelia it is!"

I've also decided that I should just stop trying to play LeBlanc. It never ends well

I didn't say you shouldn't poke with Sona, just that even doing so is still something I consider very passive and don't enjoy much. f I'm going to support it's going to be someone I can get very aggressive with and actively set up kills. It's one of the reasons I like playing Sona, Sion, Blitz, and Alistar as support... I feel like I'm actually doing something other than being a ward dispenser that occasionally spits out a heal or low damage poke.

I've played Varus for a week now, and this is what I've done so far. Attack Speed is a given, as I want to put on stacks as fast as possible. This will allow me to keep poking with my Q-Piercing Arrow, and out harass anyone with damage getting amplified from the stacks.

You also have so little life that's it embarassing. It be a waste to build tanky, but a Frozen Mallet, that can keep enemies slowed, and give you 700HP is usually good enough to allow you to be an effective AD-Carry. I actually usually build Phage early, since my fast attack speed will let it Proc very often, and I'll complete it at the end, after Phantom Dancer.

My mid game build that would build up to that, is usually components of them, instead of fully buidling one at a time:Boots, Zeal, Phage, life steal ring, sword.

This does leave me a too squishy for my own play-style, so I often find myself eliminating one item... like either the Cleaver, blood thirster, or Infinity edge, for something that's more opponent specific, for life-saving capabilities.

Yuck. I've encountered 2 very competant Varus players now. Both were extremely effective at pushing the bot lane far enough that Varus could hide in the bush and pop that Q at *just* the right time to destroy our life bars waaaay too quickly. Then a quick tower dive with their support and they'd get a double kill.

The combo of range and speed of the actual arrow makes it very hard to dodge. Unless our jungler can consistantly harrass that bot lane (since Varus doesn't have escapes really), I don't see good things playing against Varus bot lane.

On the flip side, I've been having a blast with Heimer mid lane whenever I can play him. I think ppl don't play Heimer enough anymore and forget how to play against him. Junglers have the bad habit of going straight for me allowing my turrets to just decimate them as they chase me around. Mids forget the range of those rockets and take too many to the face allowing my jungler to take em down. It's just been straight up fun lately with him.

Also, I think I'm going to give up on Leona for my tanking for the time being. Seems like in pub games with no team speak I can't get my AD carry to coord well with me for stun kills. This leaves me dangling out there to lose half my life before I can retreat. I'm contemplating trying out Nautilis and see how I fair with him. Does he *have* to jungle or does he consistantly work out bot lane?

I'm trying to master the jungle and have been buying a lot of them junglers in the past few weeks. This week an interesting champion that I don't have made its way to the F2P: Shen.

I tried him yesterday for the first time, and usually I try a few games in custom to understand how much damage I take and how fast I clear the jungle but this time I was rather short on time and just ran in unranked to try it. And god is he fun to play. His clear time is rather high, but he doesn't take a whole bunch of damage allowing me to recall a lot less or gank more often. His ganks are super fun and his ult is just awesome (until they nerf it).

I really enjoy rammus, lee sin, udyr and now shen as junglers. I tried Olaf but I don't get team fights with him and I'm even worse at understanding how to gank with him. I'll have to give Dr.Mundo another try but I think i'm missing critical runes to run the jungle easily. I also need to learn how to jungle as WW. Clearing the jungle is not a problem, but ganking pre-6 is a problem for me as well as my role in team fights after my ult. Still have a lot more of junglers to try so if you need one, let me know. I'm "lorcas" in game.

I love Olaf but he's probably more at home in top lane than in the jungle. Though he does have fast jungle clears and his ganks are actually better than Mundo and Shyvana, so he's definitely viable there.

As for ganking with Olaf... You have to learn to throw that axe. You land your axe for the slow, run up and just start pounding them, leading off with Reckless Swing and landing it again every time it comes off cooldown. Like Dr. Mundo and Shyvana though, he works better as a jungler if the people he's ganking for already have some crowd control of their own.

Team fights with Olaf are the same as for any tanky DPS. Find a carry and crap on them. Even if you die in the process, taking out their carry means you've done your job.

Olaf is incredibly strong in the jungle, so long as he has blue. I personally don't even think about picking him unless I have a manaless mid. Even pre blue nerf you could run yourself out with axe spam, which is the only way he can compete on clear speed.

I'm contemplating trying out Nautilis and see how I fair with him. Does he *have* to jungle or does he consistantly work out bot lane?

I play a fair amount of Nautilus in non-ranked, and I've done so as a Jungler, solo top, and supporting the Bottom lane. He is viable at the bottom, and it keeps the lane-enemies in check because they are scared to get pulled in by the hook... or walked upto and stunned-aoe slowed- and then hooked back in. I go for Gfor10 items, and allow the carry to get like 90% or more of the CS. I sometimes might start with a Mana Manipulator if my carry in bottom lane is a champion that burns mana quickly.

So it's certainly viable at bottom. So if you already have a Jungler, and no one wants to play support. You can lane there successfully with Nautilus.

Thanks SeM. I'll have to pick him up and try him out. So I laned as Corki with a Nautilis the other night and that guy just wreaked with him. He went Rod of Ages and was able to tank AND blow up ppl. It was awesome. So I guess I can buy/try Nautilis.

Plus, I guess I need to learn to jungle. It's the one role I've never EVER tried so picking a champ that can do both roles would certainly help.

Final quick story: Last night I played as Heimer again and WOW, seriously, ppl have forgotten how to play against him. Only WW would EVER try to kill my turrets. Everyone else would run past them to get me and would promptly die. Is it just my ELO or something that people don't understand Heimer? I mean, I know everyone begins ~1000 ELO right? I've been hovering around 1000 for a while now and think i'm an 'average' player so I just assumed everyone at my ELO at least understood how all the champs work.

Anyways, one of these days i'll actually try playing with you guys...just most of my gaming time is after 10pm on normal days so I just shoot for a 'quick' ranked game for the night.